I set the workbook down. If I want to be an artist, an award-winning artist like Dad, I cannot compete with simple patterns. Dad says that art is not child’s play. Maybe that was the problem with the school art contest collage. Maybe it seemed too much like a childish painting. I had gotten carried away with the green splatters. I straighten my shoulders and sit upright on the stool. I will not get carried away with stained glass.
Opal sets a box of crayons on the table and hands me a paper girl pattern.
“Are we coloring?” I ask. I wonder if a part of stained glass is trying different colors and coloring with crayons before cutting the glass.
“Crayons for Sammy,” Opal says.
Sammy pouts her lips and glares at Opal. “No. I want to do stained glass.” She jabs her finger at me. “Like her!”
I swallow the smile before Sammy can see me. I’m enjoying being her role model.
“No,” Opal says. “You are too young for stained glass.”
Sammy looks at me and I shrug my shoulders. “She’s the boss.” Opal is not someone who I want to cross in any way, and she’s right. Sammy is too young for stained glass. Too much cutting and breaking for her little fingers.
Sammy kicks her legs against the stool and balls her hands into small fists. “I don’t want to color in a coloring book,” she whines. “Coloring books are boring.”
I know how Sammy feels. Dad used to tell me the same thing, but I can’t imagine Sammy working the steel grinder that hums in the corner of the shop. It’s like when I tried to help Dad crop his pictures and disaster followed. I had earned an “A” in computer class and I wanted to show Dad by changing his computer picture to a sideways angle. When I pressed the crop button, or what I thought looked like the crop button, the picture disappeared. I clicked undo. Nothing happened. I clicked undo again. A picture from a small screen below the large screen disappeared.
“What are you doing?” Dad pushed me out of the way and scrambled to find the pictures I’d just lost. It was another time I’d gotten in the way of Dad’s art. Again, the feelings of sadness come racing back. I’ve tried very hard not to think about Dad, but it’s next to impossible in the stained glass art studio. The urge to check my cell phone is strong. I know there’s reception in town, but if I check it, I have to explain why I’m looking for messages in the middle of the stained glass lesson, and that’s not something I want to do.
Sammy’s legs thump against the table and interrupt my thinking.
“Stop.” I tap the top of her legs gently.
Apparently the tap is too gentle, because Sammy keeps thumping. I grit my teeth as her thumps seem to echo deep inside me, as if I am hollow.
From across the room, Opal pulls out two plastic bins from underneath the counter. I wait for her to say something about Sammy’s thumping, and when she doesn’t, I spring into action. I don’t want to listen to a five-year-old thump for the next two hours, so the best thing is a little distraction. Reaching over, I fold the perforated edges of a sunflower picture in Sammy’s workbook.
Sammy keeps thumping. Gritting my teeth and holding my right hand against the edge of the table, I tear out the page and turn it over. “Draw on this side.” I say in my best commanding voice.
Sammy’s legs continue to hit the counter. “It’s blank,” she says above the noise her legs are making.
“Not after you draw.” The stone in my ring catches in the sunlight and sends purple arcs of light across the wood tabletop.
“What’s that?” Sammy stops swinging her feet against the counter. Finally, all is quiet and I breathe a sigh of relief.
I hold my ring up to the light. “This?” I love telling people about my magic ring. The only problem is that no one asks.
Sammy nods her head, and I wave my fingers in the sunlight as if in a parade. The purple stone sends small boxes of light over Sammy’s face, the table, and the pattern book on the table—just like the stained glass in the windows.
“Well,” I say in my best dramatic voice. I stop waving the ring and rest my hand on the table. I spread out my fingers like a hand model. “This is my magic ring.”
Sammy’s mouth opens. “What does it do?”
“This ring,” I say, and lower my voice, “tells me the future.”
“Show me,” Sammy says in the same whisper.
In a dramatic flourish, I lay my hand over the stone. Turning the ring once to the right, and twice to the left, I close my eyes.
“Can you see my Dad?” Sammy asks. “He’s in Heaven.”
My eyes fly open. Sammy’s face is inches from mine. This is not what I want to happen. There is no way I can see Sammy’s dad in Heaven, and if I had known, I would have told her some ground rules, like the ring only works for this universe. I jump off my stool and take a step away from Sammy. I never should have told her about the magic ring.
Opal eyes me a minute before she hands me two plastic bins with fragmented pieces of glass. “Pick your colors,” she says, as the glass rattles like broken pieces of dishes inside a garbage can. “And no more talk about magic rings.”
“We’re not using those?” I nod at the long square sheets standing upright in a wooden bin and divided by color. I don’t look at Sammy. I feel miserable. Why did I start this silly game about the magic ring? I’ve obviously upset Opal. Now Sammy thinks I can see people in Heaven. I don’t want to tell her that I can’t find my dad in Africa, so there is no way I can see her dad in Heaven.
“Scraps work best. Less to grind away.” Opal pulls out a yellow, jagged-edged rectangular piece. She sets it in the middle of the girl pattern. “See?”
“It doesn’t fit.” I point toward the paper girl’s middle and the jagged yellow glass. Secretly, I’m glad we aren’t using the large sheets of glass.
“By the time we’re done, it will,” Opal says.
“You didn’t see him.” Sammy picks out a green crayon from her coloring box and draws a jagged line across her blank paper.
I find pieces of white, yellow, turquoise, and light purple glass from the bin. “No.” I arrange the glass on the paper girl pattern. “The ring doesn’t show me my dad, either.” I swallow hard. “He’s in Africa.” It’s the first time I’ve said the words, and they send arcs of pain shooting through me. The pain is so strong that for a minute, I wonder if I’ll be able to keep breathing.
“It’s okay.” Sammy presses hard on her green crayon. “I didn’t think the ring was really magic.” Her green crayon snaps in two.
Feeling like I’ve gotten myself in over my head, and not sure which is more painful—telling Sammy about Dad in Africa, or listening to her say the ring isn’t magic—I look to Opal for help.
But Opal doesn’t look at me. She says nothing as she continues searching through the bins. Trying to escape the sharp pain that swirls inside me, I flip my ring so the stone faces my palm and ask Opal, “What next?”
“Cutting.” Opal picks up my paper girl pattern, yellow glass piece and a small knife from a glass jar on the table.
“Perfect.” Cutting is perfect for the way I feel inside—like everything is being torn to shreds and I’m not sure how to make it stop.
Opal hands Sammy and me large goggle glasses. “Put these on first.” She sets the glass and paper pattern on a glass table where a light shines from underneath. She moves the knife along the edges of the yellow glass. “Make sure you hear the popping noise.”
Sammy snaps another crayon. I’m not sure how I’m going to hear glass popping over Sammy’s snapping.
“Watch,” Opal says, and presses hard on the knife. When she lifts the knife and I look at the square glass piece, there is a line in it. It looks like the line in the vase Mom dropped. Opal lifts the glass off the table, and with a slight twist of her wrist, she snaps the glass into two pieces.
I can’t believe she’s not grimacing in pain after snapping glass in two pieces. I wait for blood to pour from her hands.
“The trick is in the pressure.” Opal s
ees my puzzled look and hands me the glasscutter knife. There is no blood on her hands.
Sammy snaps another crayon, and just as I wonder how many she has left, Opal reaches under the table and pulls out a bin filled with broken crayons. Sammy tosses the green crayon into the bin. I wait for the glass to feel the pressure and pop all on its own. When nothing happens, I lower the glasscutter over a turquoise piece of square glass and press down. There is no noise.
“Harder,” Opal says.
I press into the glasscutter. The glass pops. I look up at Sammy. I’m beginning to understand why she breaks her crayons. It’s like small fizzes of pressure escaped out of me with the pop of the glass.
“Now break it,” Opal tells me.
“Break it?”
Opal nods. “Break it.”
I lift the glass and hold it in my hands. For a minute, the nerves are back and I’m afraid. I don’t want to cut myself. And it seems strange to purposely break glass. I rub my fingers over the etched line.
Sammy sets her crayon down on the table. “I like this part,” she says.
I consider handing Sammy the glass. She seems to be good at breaking things.
“You can use the pliers.” Opal holds out a small silver pair of pliers with rubber on the edges.
“No.” I shake my head. I’m not going to use pliers. If Opal can break the glass in her hands and Sammy can snap crayons, then I’m going to break things with my hands, too.
In one motion, I flick my wrists and snap the glass.
Chapter Nine
The evening sun breaks through the tall fir trees surrounding Uncle Jasper’s house and casts long shadows in the kitchen. I hand him a warm salmon.
“Market’s finest fresh salmon,” I say. I’ve never had fresh salmon. Not the kind that has been plucked from the waters of Puget Sound. The Market had lots of salmon already cooked, and it was easy to carry home on the bike on my way back from stained glass class.
“Thanks.” Uncle Jasper takes a plate and carries it to the wooden kitchen table, where he pulls out a chair and sits down. Opal is outside the kitchen window. She pulls a glass ball from a cardboard box. The ball dangles from a thin wire, and the fading sunlight shines through the blue glass. I’d asked Uncle Jasper if she wanted salmon; he had shaken his head and said that she’d already eaten. I don’t ask why she’s hanging balls outside and not eating with us. It seems like another something different on the Island that I’m not sure I understand.
“Great choice,” Uncle Jasper says. He takes a bite, chews, and then nods at me.
I watch Opal for another minute as she reaches into the thin branches of a tree and ties the glass ball to the branch. The branch bends with the weight, but it doesn’t break. I fill my plate with a chunk of salmon and pull out the chair opposite Uncle Jasper. I want to tell him about stained glass with Opal, but I’m not sure what the rules are at the dinner table. Do we eat without talking? Eat and talk? Dad never liked too much talking at dinner. He said it ruined his concentration on the meal.
“I’ve got some news for you,” Uncle Jasper says before I can start a conversation.
“News?” My heart races. Has Dad called while I’ve been at stained glass class? Maybe he called Mom and she told him I was on the Island. I set my fork down. It won’t matter how good the salmon is; I can’t eat anything.
Uncle Jasper takes a sip of water, and small droplets run down the inside of the glass. He clears his throat and wipes his lips. “We’re a bit short on mentors for the Island summer program.”
“The mentor program.” I try to focus on Uncle Jasper. “Mentoring is what you and Cole do, right?” I can’t help it. I feel the flush moving up my cheeks at the mention of Cole’s name.
“Yes. It’s the special arrangement for seventh and eighth graders who live on the Island. They get to work with a mentor for a two-year period. Your Mom and I had hoped you’d get to be a part of this program. Maybe not for two years, but for the summer.”
I have to admit, it does sound like a special program, and I’m excited to think I was going to have an art mentor. “Maybe I can hang out with someone else and their mentor.” I’m hoping Uncle Jasper will let me hang out with him and Cole.
“Don’t think so.” Uncle Jasper shakes his head. “The mentors are one-on-one. It seems that we’re going to have a hard time filling all the local applications. It doesn’t look like yours will be able to be filled.”
“That’s okay,” I say slowly. “Isn’t it?” I feel a little strange. Even though the program does sound like something I’d like, I’m beginning to feel like I’m a charity case that everyone needs to fix.
Uncle Jasper takes a bite of salmon and swallows. “The problem is that your Mom thought there still might be time to enroll for the last session at Fishers. You could go home in a few weeks, instead of at the end of the summer.”
“No!” I cry. “She told me I could spend the summer on the Island. I’ve barely been here two days!” I spin my ring. Faster and faster. Once to the left. Twice to the right. There has to be a solution. I am not going home. I’ve only been on the Island two days. It’s way too early to go home. On the Island I have possibilities. Possibilities create art. Possibilities are looking at an empty canvas and seeing all the “what ifs,” and then working with those “what ifs” to let them take shape.
In Chicago, I have no possibilities. No art.
I stare into the living room, where the front door is open and the sun shines through the grape stained glass. “Opal! Who is Opal mentoring?” I’d like to work with Opal. The stained glass shop reminds me of the Art Palace, and I’m beginning to like Sammy.
“She’s not mentoring. We’d actually hoped she would be your mentor.” Uncle Jasper shakes his head and I see a shadow flick across his face. It’s obviously been a point of disagreement. “But she’s got a large project at the old Stewart House. Someone in Seattle bought it. They’re turning the place into a bed and breakfast, and they want Opal to design all the windows.”
Uncle Jasper chews, and I feel like I am free-falling to the ultimate crash. The skin below my ring is rubbed raw with all my twists.
“But the contest,” I insist. “She’s looking for one person to help her. A mentee, right?”
Uncle Jasper rubs his chin. “That’s quite a long shot. The project at the Millers will mean a full year commitment, at least.”
And I’m just here for the summer. The words linger, unspoken, between us. Even worse, unless I can figure out a way to stay, it looks like I’m headed back to Chicago very soon. My insides feel like glass balls that hang on the trees and dangle from a thin wire.
An hour later, I sit in the gazebo’s swing and push gently against the ground. The swing rocks back and forth. I’m still reeling from the news that I am going to be sent home early. I feel like I’ve done something wrong. Just like with Dad. I push harder and the swing moves faster. There has to be something I can do. I flip open my sketchbook. The strand of Christmas lights hanging around the inside of the gazebo twinkles small flashes over my Island To-Do list pasted inside the sketchbook’s front cover. Win Contest is printed in bold letters at the top of the list. Now that is even more important. I continue to read down the list and linger on Find A Boyfriend. I remember Cole’s blue eyes as they twinkled at me like the flashy gazebo Christmas lights. My insides do a small rollover shiver.
Pushing the swing back and forth, I close my eyes. I have to stay on the Island. I can’t leave now. I can’t go back to Chicago. My thoughts repeat like a mantra inside my head so loudly that when the driveway gravel crunches under bike tires, it takes me a minute to remember that I’m sitting outside in the gazebo.
I clutch my sketchbook to my chest and consider running into the house, turning off all the lights, and hiding in the nearest closet. Uncle Jasper and Opal aren’t supposed to return from their movie for at least another hour. And I’m not in the mood to entertain visitors. I stand up, ready to bolt, and see the boy on the bike is Col
e.
I plop back into the swing. Placing my sketchbook on my lap, opening it to a blank page, and slipping the pencil out of the spiral coils, I hope I look like just another artist who is hard at her work. Inside I’m sparkling like the lights in the gazebo.
Cole.
I think I’m going to burst. Cole is here.
To. See. Me.
Cole smiles as he waves nonchalantly and heads toward the swing. “Can I have a seat?”
“Sure.” I wave my hand like a princess in a parade. I hope Cole can’t tell that I’m nervous. I’ve never had a boy stop by to see me.
Cole sits on the swing and it moves with his weight. I grab onto the chains of the swing and inhale a shallow breath of air. I can’t help but notice that Cole smells like fresh soap, and when I take a quick peek at him, I see that the back of his hair is still damp. He took a shower before stopping by. This is definitely not a visit to work in Uncle Jasper’s shop.
I push my feet hard against the ground. The swing sways under me. “Don’t get motion sickness, do you?”
“Nope.” Cole grins at me and presses his feet against the ground. The swing moves faster. I clutch the side of the swing and my ring clicks against the swing’s silver chains.
Cole leans across me and touches my ring finger. I think I might pass out from the nearness of his body to mine.
“Married?” Cole asks.
Stained Glass Summer Page 8
